The Sierra Point British Car Meet in Brisbane is coming along great - This year, the food and drink will be handled by the Brisbane Lions Club, that will have their grill trailer with burgers, dogs, and (hopefully) bangers all day plus cold drinks, but get this!!! The Sierra Point Yacht Club will open their doors early on Sunday for a reasonable, sit-down, prix fix breakfast, AND, they also have a full bar that will be open all day as well ......

Herb Gibson's Jazz Orchestra will be back again, set up just outside the Yacht Club.

Due to a number of reasons, the Saturday swap meet has been canceled for this year, but it will seriously be reconsidered for next year.

Even though this event is brought to you by the same folks who coordinated the Palo Alto Meet for 30 years, this is a new location with new challenges and requirements and we are working hard to provide a similar event at a reasonable price. This year, we are going back to collectable year-specific event coffee mugs for gifts.

If you belong to a club, make sure the general membership knows about this Sierra Point meet - meet old friends in a new location - carrying on the tradition.

Join us for one of the most historic British automotive events in California at our new dockside venue at the Sierra Point Marina. Over 400 quirky, classic, and thoroughly lovable British cars are once again expected to grace the lawn and adjacent parking area in Brisbane, California. This is essentially the old Palo Alto meet in its new location. We are also expecting another great display of automotive oddities provided by the Arcane Auto Society. Spectators attend and park for free.

SUNDAY SHOW - SEPTEMBER 7th

Join your British car friends for a smashing day at the Marina. Don't have a show car? Don't worry! Daily drivers, vintage racers, street rods and works-in-progress are as welcome as Concours quality show cars. British food, jazz, & more fun than you'll be able to tolerate! Awards in many classes. There will be no preregistration - all entrants will receive a commemorative gift. Cars will be placed at 9:00AM and the fun goes on all day. The registration fee is still $25 per car at the gate.

SATURDAY TOUR - SEPTEMBER 6th

The British Car Meet TOUR TO THE SEA starts at the Sierra Point Marina boathouse (the same place as the Sunday Car Show) and winds through the hills to the sea. Itís no-cost option for people who like to drive their cars as well as show them. We will be sending cars off between 9:00AM and 10:30AM. A map will be provided. The tour ends at Cameron's Pub in Half Moon Bay where we will be kicking tyres and telling tall tales in the car park well into the afternoon.

DIRECTIONS:

The Brisbane Marina is lacated just east of the Bayshore Freeway (101) between San Francisco and the SF Airport/Highway 380. Just take the Sierra Point Exit and follow the signs to the Marina. Trailer parking will be available on-site.

The Palo Alto British Car Meet was relocated to a new permanent location 20 miles north to Brisbane. The First Annual Brisbane Marina British Car Meet in conjunction with the Arcane Society Car Show accommodated more than 250 cars with plenty of room for more in the future events to come. There was no public entry fee, but participants paid $25 per car. Three English Fords were entered. An Anglia 124E, a 2D Cortina 1966 GT, and an Arcane Show entry a Thames Freighter. That would be one of the lowest number of English Fords entered since the first Palo Alto British Car Meet (this would have been the 31st meet). The organizers and the Brisbane Marina staff did a splendid job. Breakfast could be purchased in the clubhouse in the morning and Guinness drinks were $2 all day. In addition, there was a BBQ vendor, Brian and Sandy Holmes' souvenir stand, very clean restroom facilities and a picturesque location on San Francisco Bay. I'm looking forward to next year's 2nd Annual and maybe we'll get to see more English Fords, and you may even see a black cherry 4D 1966 Cortina GT.

The 31st Bay Area British Car Meet, held at the Brisbane, CA Marina was a real hit, despite the lower attendance. While this was somewhat expected due to the new venue, flaging economy, and high gas prices, we were still down about 30% from last year.

Most people who attended loved the Marina, especially the restaurant seating for breakfast at the Sierra Point Yacht Club, that extended to the afternoon for folks who bought lunch from the Brisbane Lions Club barbeque, as well as the Yacht Club's full bar that was open all day. The Radisson Hotel at the Marina offered a special reduced rate for the British Meet and a number of people took advantage of that as well, judging from the Britiron in the car park.

The Saturday tour attracted over 50 cars and sent them over the Guadalupe Parkway and onto the "old" Skyline Blvd. now mostly bypassed by Highway 280. It then connected to more familiar roads on the West Peninsula and on to Cameron's Pub in Half Moon Bay.

Sunday's show was set along the lawned strip, just a walkway away from the bay, that stretched along the path from the Boathouse, north. The paved car park area was a bit sparse due to the reduced attendance. All in all, this was a nice little meet in a new location, and we will be changing things around some next year for our 32nd Bay Area Meet.

The folks in Brisbane, from Harbormaster Ted Warburton and his staff, Dan Carter and the great bunch of folks at the Brisbane Lions, to Captain Jack Ritter of the Sierra Point Yacht Club, and all of the people from the City of Brisbane, including the Mayor, who brought his TR8 roadster to the meet, helped to make this happen smoothly and easily. While we all will miss the Palo Alto venue, I think we have a winner here and I hope to see more of you at next year's meet.

I have attached a montage of what the meet looked like and you can see more of the Marina and a number of the winners on our website at:

I also want to thank Frank Cunningham for hosting our website on allcarcentral.com and helping so much with the promotion. Also thanks to Clara Cunningham for her photos on the website. Even though most of the cars are from the Sixties, and many of the group are at least in our sixties, we work to keep up with today's technology......

Check out the attached montage, check out the shots on all car central and, most of all, come see us next year at the Brisbane Marina British Car Meet in 2009.